Too much of everything

Crappy film

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Better than expected, and disappointing, at the same time. Initially better than expected, as I was expecting a lame send-up of the adult film industry, but Joseph Gordon-Levitt's opening scene is hilariously funny. Next few scenes were in the same vein, so I got my hopes up, thinking this could be a great comedy.Unfortunately, it runs out of steam pretty quickly, and takes itself too seriously. At some point it becomes a drama, and the plot unravels and becomes pointless. Ultimately the only positives are the scenes involving Joseph Gordon-Levitt, as they continue to be funny throughout the movie, while the remaining threads spiral into random nonsense.Performances are pretty good, despite the weak material. As mentioned, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is great, and Carlo Gugino, as Elektra Luxx, is solid. Supporting cast, which includes Malin Akerman, Timothy Olyphant, Kathleen Quinlan and Julianne Moore is OK.Could have been better, but also could have been a lot worse.

The famous porn star Elektra Luxx (Carla Gugino) has retired from the adult film industry since she is pregnant and now she survives giving sex class to married women. One day, the flight attendant Cora (Marley Shelton) meets Elektra after class and tells that she killed the rock star Nick Chapel, who is the father of her unborn child, and stolen lyrics that he had written about Elektra. Cora offers the lyrics to Elektra provided she seduces her fiancé to compensate the one night stand she had with another man. Elektra is reluctant to accept but she agrees in the end and everything goes wrong.Elektra also meets her former colleague Holly Rocket (Adrianne Palicki), who has been expelled from the film industry, and she tells that she is traveling to Mexico with her girlfriend Bambi Lindberg (Emmanuelle Chriqui). Holly has serious difficulties in communication but along their journey she discloses a secret to Bambi that will affect their lives.Meanwhile the blogger Bert Rodriguez (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a great fan of Elektra Luxx and he posts articles about the adult industry. He has a crush on the attendant Trixie (Malin Akerman) has difficulties to tell his feelings for her."Elektra Luxx" is a complete mess, with a story that is unfunny for a comedy; too silly for a drama or romance; and too well-behaved for a erotic or soft porn movie. The good cast is wasted in a weird and numb plot and surprisingly there are reviews promoting this terrible flick. My vote is three.Title (Brazil): "Um Caso Complicado" ("A Complicated Case")

A sequel to Women in Trouble, this movie has just as much talk and even less action. If you loved the first film and thought Carla Gugino was the best thing in it, you will revel in this motion picture. If it wore you out with non-stop blather and thought Gugino was just one among many other members of the cast, well…you're probably not going to be watching Elektra Luxx in the first place. If you're unfamiliar with either movie, this is what you need to know.Aside from a couple of butt shots, there is no real nudity in Elektra Luxx. There is a lot of dialog, and I mean A LOT, but the characters do very little. This is more like a radio drama than a film or even a stage play. Some of the dialog is quite clever and entertaining. Some of it isn't nearly as clever or entertaining as writer/director Sebastain Gutierrez believes. The sheer tonnage of words spoken here without accompanying plot will likely wear on you over time, something which only enhances the lackluster ending of this thing. There's a dream sequence which demonstrates that Gugino should avoid any roles that require singing and dancing and that Gutierrez has no future in music videos. And this movie continues to employ Gutierrez' graphic but rather sanitized presentation of sexual discussion. These characters say a lot of supposedly provocative things. With the juiceless way they say them, however, they might as well be talking about the weather or comparing lawn fertilizer.This story is again about the several intersecting lives, though fewer in number and importance than Women in Trouble. Primarily, it's about ex-porn star Elektra Luxx (Carla Gugino). She's pregnant with her dead, rock star boyfriend's baby and teaching a class on "How to act like a porn star in bed" at the local community center. She gets caught up in the personal drama of Cora (Marly Shelton), the stewardess who was having sex with Luxx' boyfriend on a plane when he died. There's also a private eye (Timothy Olyphant), a best selling author (Kathleen Quinlan) and a naked, jealous neighbor (Vincent Kartheiser) who orbit around Luxx. There are also more disconnected plot lines about a Latino sex blogger (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and about two sex workers from the first movie (Adrianne Palicki and Emmanuelle Chriqui) taking a vacation together and resolving the relationship cliffhanger Gutierrez left them at in Women in Trouble.Look, the acting here is enjoyable and the direction, while not terribly involving, is perfectly acceptable. The problem is that this film goes on and on and on with the same thing over and over and over. If you took the best scenes here and inserted them into a story where stuff actually happens in between, Elektra Luxx would have been pretty good. As it is, watching this is like taking a long car ride with someone who won't stop talking. No matter how intelligent and interesting they are at the beginning, after a certain point you just want them to shut the hell up.This is in no way a poorly made film, though the plot is pretty sketchy. It is a movie that completely reasonable people will find intolerable. Only those who were captivated by Gugino in Women in Trouble should bother with it.

An amateur blogger, Bert Rodriguez, introduces us to famous porn star Elektra Luxx, now retired from the sensational days of her stardom. Her films are described in vivid details from the comforts of Rodriguez's living room where he is recording his piece about the luminous star while one hears in the background his mother's voice asking him to take out the trash.Elektra, who finds herself pregnant from a boyfriend who died on the lavatory of a jetliner, has reinvented herself into a teacher for repressed women who has no clue as how to behave in bed. The singer has left a lot of songs which even Elektra did not know about. Elektra is surprised by one of her students, that turns out to be a professional writer who wants to write her memoirs, a sort of guide into the pleasures of sex.There are about three narratives running into the plot, all of which come together toward the end. This is not a film for everyone. Sebastian Gutierrez expanded his previous "Women in Trouble" with an emphasis on the character of Elektra. The comedy is witty as it tackles its subject with an eye toward fun. Mr. Gutierrez even includes a scene where the Virgin Mary has a tete-a-tete with Elektra while she is having a bath!Carla Gugino makes the most of her character; she really is an optimist in a field where one could not think it possible. The excellent Joseph Gordon-Levitt is perhaps the director's alter ego, Bert Rodriguez, a young man in awe of the pleasures he has received from watching all of Ms. Luxx's films. Most of the cast has worked with the director before. Among the supporting casts there are good performances by Marley Shelton, Emmanuelle Chiriki, Adrienne Palicki, Timothy Olyphant, Kathleen Quinlan, Malin Ackerman, and a great cameo by Julianne Moore as the Virgin Mary.Mr. Gutierrez keeps things moving at a quick pace, which benefits the enjoyment of the film. The creator of "Elektra Luxx" shows an irreverent streak for the material he wrote and directed.